You may recall the 1991 film L.A. Story, in which Steve Martin plays a TV weatherman who, thanks to the constant sun in Southern California, pre-records his weather bulletins. Well, I’m beginning to think it’s possible to do that regarding shares in Apple Inc.

If, by announcing a referendum on EU membership, the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron took the silliest political gamble in the country’s history, it has now been surpassed by his successor (one of the few sentences you’re likely to see Theresa May’s name in the same sentence as the word success).

US stock prices are on the up – this time because of firms’ quarterly results, not just central bank force-feeding. Added to that, in its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF suggests that global economic activity is “picking up with a long-awaited cyclical recovery in investment, manufacturing and trade.”